XXXVII. If we pass from her personal habits and character, CHAP. to her public conduct, we find a princess who was esteemed by her continental contemporaries, to be one of the greatest sovereigns that had filled the English throne. Abstracting from our consideration their military talents, no king, from the time of Alfred the Great, appears to have reigned in England with more royal qualities, with more intellectual endowments, or with greater public utilities, than Elizabeth."" She made those two great patriotic objects the principles of her regal policy and conduct, which she desired to be engraved on her monumental tablet-The maintenance of the Protestant Reformation, and the preservation of national peace with all other states and kingdoms. 178 And she is an expressive instance of the admirable arrangement of the supreme government of human affairs, by which the fittest agents to produce the grand improvements which human nature requires, and which are ordained to create them, are always made to arise, elevated to power, and urged into appropriate action, at the necessary and most congruous times, and in the places where they will be most effective. A Luther courtiers, learned professors, intelligent statists, as ever attended any Christian prince; but also a nursery, where young nobles and others might be trained up to the managing of greatest affairs; and a sanctuary where the meanest might find relief against the mightiest. The greatest were drawn to practice equity, both by her example and command.' Chron. p. 907. 177 This was the impression of Perefixe, the Historian of Henry le Grand, without any limitation: L'une des plus illustres, et des plus heroiques princesses, qui ayent jamais regné: et laquelle regit son état, avec plus de conduite, et plus de vigueur, qu'aucun roy de ses predecesseurs n'avoit jamais fait.' Hist. p. 320. 178 Religionis instaurationem et pacis conservationem.' Bacon, p. 187. Lord BOOK II. was excited in Saxony to begin the mighty change that was wanted in the intellectual mind of Europe, when the exertions of such a man and spirit were requisite, and would be efficacious. He having successfully begun the wonderful mutation, passed away when he could no further advance it; and Elizabeth was conducted to the English throne as soon as she had attained the proper age and qualifications, when the arm and head of a wise, firm, upright, enlightened, moral and religious sovereign, were wanted to discomfit its fierce opponents, and to uphold what all the popes, royalties, and hierarchies of Europe, south of the Baltic, at that precise juncture were confederated and resolute to destroy. They put in vehement action against her, individually, and against the Reformation every where, all the means of ruin and evil, by which power and skill, wickedness and activity could overwhelm what they detested or resolved to abolish. But altho they repeatedly forced into perilous operation against her, the most formidable agents and instruments of mischief, which agitated her wisest counsellors with gloomy apprehensions; yet, strong, unshaken, and never subverted, like the rocky cliffs of the island she governed, Elizabeth endured and confronted the ever-recurring hostilities with magnanimous imperturbability. Calm, mild, serene, undaunted, and moving by grander laws, and under the most exalted guidance, she relied on that Protector who never forsook her: and every plot being defeated and dispersed by her quiet and steadfast counteraction, continually disappointed the malevolence and enmity of its authors, and only augmented the attachment of her subjects, XXXVII. and her own reputation. But if these opponents CHAP. had not so inveterately assailed her, and so pertinaciously applied themselves to exterminate the Reformation and its professors, the chief wish of her heart, and the grand rules of her policy, would have been fulfilled. England would have been in fraternal peace with all its neighbors during the whole of her reign; and the sacred and indestructible rights of conscience would have been every where preserved, without that profusion of bloodshed and human misery, which the papacy and its adherents so wilfully and systematically occasioned. All that she could do to avoid warfare she fearlessly did, against the plans and urgencies of many of her statesmen. They wished larger wars, and mighty armies and operations; but she, seeking only peace, tho compelled to resist military violences by arms, always limited her warlike aids and exertions to the smallest amount, extent and duration, that were not incompatible with their efficacious result. The peace of England and of Europe was still her favorite purpose and desire in every armament she sent out, and in every enterprise which she permitted others to execute in her name. She even listened to the prince of Parma's insidious talk of pacification, when the armada was on the seas. Ambition, and the lust of power, never stained her conduct. She reigned like the kind and guardian angel of Protestant Europe, assisting and superintending it with beneficent care; acting only for the sake of doing good, and always producing it in some shape or other. Hence no sovereign ever ruled with more of the thanks and blessings of mankind while she lived, and none to II. BOOK whose reign they have been more deeply indebted.179 The unceasing conspiracies and implacable hostilities which she endured and surmounted, are ample testimonies of the momentous importance of her life and sovereignty. If they had succeeded, dark and evil would have been the fate and history both of England and of Europe, from the day of their dismal triumph to our present period, which has become so much happier only from their providential disappointment. Benefiting thus others so extensively, it is a pleasure to find that she lived and ruled, respected and attended to by the most distant powers. Even the sultan Amurath III, sought her friendship; and his sultana paid her the unusual compliment of addressing to her a letter of personal kindness. 181 Her peace-making spirit extended even to harmonize the Turkish emperor, and Poland. 182 The sophi of Persia expressed likewise his admiration of her, and granted a port in the Gulf of Persia for the reception 180 179 In her lifetime she was styled by the foreign churches, and at her death generally lamented by them, as the nursing mother of the French, Dutch, and Italian exiles for Christ's name; and the UNCONQUERED DEFENDERESS of the whole Christian religion.' Beza, cited by Speed, p. 908. King James I. justly distinguished her in his Epitaph as, Patriæ parenti; religionis et bonarum artium altrici.' 180 In the MSS. of the British Museum, is a letter from Amurath III. to Elizabeth, dated from Constantinople, 15 March 1579, desiring to be on friendly terms with her, and signifying that he had given licences to Englishmen to traffic in his dominions. On 25 October 1599, is a copy of her letter to the grand Turk, in favor of some merchants. MSS. Nero, B. 8. p. 45; 41. The same MS. contains a list of the Turkey merchants, and their request to the queen of a loan. 181 The same MS. contains the letter of this sultana to Elizabeth, p. 57. 182 Her letter in 1590 to Barton, approving of his proceedings to avert a war between Turkey and Poland, is in the same MS. p. 50. Of these eastern powers, Speed remarks: In most of their dominions, to the great enriching of her kingdom, she settled commerce for increase of merchandise, and got large privileges for encouragement of her merchants, whom she cherished as a most necessary and important part of her weal public.' p. 907, 185 XXXVII. of English vessels; 183 and Alamuman Abdel Melech, CHAP. the emperor of Morocco and Fez, also corresponded in amity with her.18 But the simple expressions of the humble Jewess from the Ottoman capital, inserted in the note, are perhaps not the least interesting.' Elizabeth had sent a present to the Turkish sultana mother, who now, to prove the love she bore to the English queen,' returned her a robe and a girdle, and two kerchiefs wrought in gold, and three in silk, after the Mussulman fashion; a necklace of pearls and rubies, with a wreath of pearls and diamonds, from the sultana's own jewels.'' The daughter of Israel communicates to her, the delivery of these rich civilities to the English ambassador for her use, and adds from the sultana, 'which your majesty will be pleased to wear for the love of her.' 187 186 183 In this MS. of Nero, B. 8 is J. Cartwright's relation of the sophi of Persia's great admiration of Elizabeth; his desire that she may make peace with Spain, and of his making this grant. p. 68. 184 It was on 10th July 1577, that this Moorish king sent the answer in MS. Nero, B. 8. p. 64, to the letters which Elizabeth had, in the preceding July, addressed to him on commercial subjects. Her instructions to her envoy on these are in p. 62. 185 They seem to have been written with the sultana's approbation: 'As the sun with his rays shines upon the earth, so the virtue and greatness of your majesty extend over the whole universe; so much so, that those who are of different nations and laws desire to serve your majesty. This I can say for myself, that being a Hebrew, of laws and of a nation different from yours, yet from the first hour that it pleased the Most High to put into the heart of our most serene queen to use my services, I have been always very desirous that an opportunity should occur to me in which I might shew these my wishes to your majesty.' The letter is in Italian, dated from Constantinople, 16th November 1599. Her name was Esperanza Malchi. Mr. Ellis has printed it, v. 3. p. 53. 196 Ellis, p. 54. 167 The Jewess then requests for her Turkish mistress some female embellishers of beauty from Elizabeth: Your majesty being a lady full of condescension, I venture to prefer the following request; that since there are to be met with in your kingdom distilled waters of every description for the face, and odoriferous oils for the hands, your majesty |